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Comments · 7
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Re:So Iran's standards then?
And before you mention the Supreme Court - it is part of the U.S. Government. It is part of the problem. To have the U.S. Government pass a bill, then sign it into a law, then rubberstamp it "constitutional" is as illogical as letting Microsoft's Board of Directors decide whether or not it violated antitrust legislation. NO organization should self-police itself.
Did you fail high school civics? Reread the Federalist papers.
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Re:No story here
I don't think that parents "own" their children
No one thinks that. Not that I have seen in this discussion, anyway. The question is not whether a child is "owned" or has rights, but who the authority is on what the child deserves and needs.
I reject that government is that authority.
... and should be allowed to do with them in whatever way they want.
Short of ACTUAL harm, which we all recognize and I don't need to describe
It's not that parents should be ALLOWED to teach their children to be, for example, racist. It is that parents HAVE that right and government has NO right to interfere.
It is extremely odd to me that so many people are decrying the "brainwashing" by parents, but then so willingly accept the "brainwashing" by government.
The idea behind enforcing that all children are sent to a school
First, that's false. Nothing like that is ensured. We have a massive dropout rate here in my county, in the public schools. And the test scores are terrible.
Second -- and this is somewhat related to the first -- the PARENT gets to define what a suitable education IS. Not government.
If I want to teach my kids that the federal government is evil and that the only good skills you need are farming and shooting, then that's my business, not government's.
And moreover, to have a chance to learn how to socialize with other people, too.
Yeah, this is such a terrible argument. Read my other response to it if you like.
I also don't believe that allowing parents to isolate their children and to indoctrinate them is a good idea
First, I don't think the word "indoctrinate" means anything here. I think you are using "indoctrinate" to mean "teaching something I disagree with," which is something schools do all the time: indoctrinate in favor of global warming, for example. I was falsely told many times in school that we have three coequal branches in the federal government, which is a political viewpoint that I disagree with (and which The Federalist disagrees with).
Second, I would agree isolation of children is not a good idea. But I also think many things are not a good idea. Hannah Montana, for example. I assert that Hannah Montana and Bratz and Barbie and many of these other toys for girls are much more damaging than homeschooling. Funny, though, when someone complains about bad toys for kids, the response is, "be a parent, don't let your kids have those toys." But when parents complain about bad education, the response from many of the same people is, "but you have to."
The foundation of a democracy is mutual understanding and a willingness to cooperate with each other, and I feel that's more important than granting a universal home schooling right, with all its pros and cons.
To paraphrase Frederic Bastiat: banning the latter destroys the former. You cannot have one without the other. Or to quote Publius: "Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency."
And by the way, I have found that these principles of mutual understanding -- with a real study of what that means and how to achieve it and why it is important -- is far more commonly found in homeschooling than public schooling. I was not homeschooled myself, but almost none of the understanding of history and literature and philosophy that I have t
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Re:Should we just call it now?You seem not to like multiple parties out of some kind of distaste for the mess. The US founding fathers seemed not to like mutliple parties out of some kind of distaste for the mess. Madison was vocal about the dangers of parties ('factions') to democracy for any number of reasons (though Jefferson, ever the rogue, might disagree on this point). Would you like to know more? See Federalist No. 10.
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Re:Dialoge?You are far more likely to do harm to others than I am, because you are FAR less tolerant of differences in others than I am, and far less rational than me, to boot. Yes you tolerate people making decisions that affect their own life and yours based on irrational superstition. You are, again, lying. You have not come close to showing that my religious views are irrational.
That said, other people do, in my opinion, have irrational views. Take, well, you, for example, as I have repeatedly shown. Yet you don't see how this could be harmful. The alternative -- to prevent people from being able to do so -- is far more harmful. Read Federalist 10:By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.
Sounds like your view of religious people, doesn't it?There are
Which would YOU choose?It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.
Do you want to get rid of liberty?The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
Most people, to this, say, "well, duh." But you act like this is some terrible thing to be stopped.As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
But you don't care, as long as everyone thinks like you.
Frankly, I think you have deceived yourself into thinking that this has anything to do with right and wrong, proof and not. I've already proven beyon any reasonable doubt that you cannot prove right and wrong (despite your claim that provability is all that matters), and that you, in fact, live by faith just as much as I do. Indeed, you are the one who keeps making repeated, and totally unsubstantiated, claims that views that are not provable are "fiction" and so on. You cannot have come to that view by anything OTHER than "faith," because there is no empirical evidence supporting that view. Go read a single book with an open mind and without your preconceived notions. In fact, that is not possible. You certainly can't do it. No one can. That you think you are somehow more open-minded than anyone else is -
Re:Here's the facts on Canadian health careI don't understand is why the issue of universal/socialized health care is rarely suggested at the state level. Well I'd imagine that would be because you don't understand what "universal" means. If you did you'd understand why it's not being suggested for a small subset of the population rather than the population at large.
That is all. You may now resume your "state's rights" constitutional conversationThe powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
The reasons for this are varied, but the most important reason is obvious, and anyone concerned not just with individual liberty but democracy should care about this deeply: the more local a decision is made, the more power the voters have to affect that decision. Any state can have universal health care if it wants it. Any state that doesn't shouldn't be forced to. What could possibly make more sense?
Sure, if you believe it's a natural or Constitutional right to have health care, then every state should be forced to have it. But there's no evidence that this right has ever existed, and it violates our right to democracy to have it forced on us except through democratic means. -
Re:Just impeach his sorry assBoy, is that a leap. Nope. In fact, it is generally accepted by everyone for centuries that this is how it works. Indeed, before the Constitution was even ratified, this was understood. It's a "leap" to claim otherwise. So, you're saying that The President is EXEMPT from The Law. No, in fact, I am not saying any such thing. I am saying -- in fact, I did say -- that while he is President, he is not held accountable to the law via the criminal justice system. Instead, he is held accountable to the law via impeachment. It is irrational to twist what I said into him being "exempt" from the law, because I explicitly stated the method to be used to hold him accountable to the law.
If he commits a crime that he should be held criminally liable for, the process is clear: first the House impeaches him, then the Senate removes him from office, and then he is indicted and prosecuted in the criminal justice system.
Don't take my word for it, ask Alexander Hamilton, who wrote about it in Federalist 69:The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.
And where is the EXPLICIT grant of immunity, delegated by The People, to the Executive Branch, in the Constitution. It's not explicitly, it's directly implied, because no one exists who is capable of criminally prosecuting a sitting President. Every prosecutor functions via the President's own authority. No, he must be removed from office first. You *do* know that the Constitution delegates *all* authority to the Federal Government, and if it's not EXPLICITLY DELEGATED, it's not a Lawful Power. You worded this oddly. Do you mean that every federal power is a delegated, or enumerated, power? Well, yes, depending on how you mean it. The "necessary and proper" clause of Article I, Section 8 makes clear that many powers of the federal government are implied (which is itself an enumerated power). But that's entirely beside the point here, because this is not a matter of federal authority, but of separation of powers. The United States government has the authority to prosecute the President, but all of the authority to do so belongs to the President himself. Again, no one but the President is capable of prosecuting the President. Thus it's a non-starter.
Besides, this would cut both ways: where is the "explicit" grant of authority to prosecute the President, and who has such authority? So, what clause of the Constitution grants Immunity from Prosecution to the Executive? I already told you: Article II, Section 1. And it is not a grant of immunity per se, rather than a clear statement that no one but the President has authority to prosecute crimes, and therefore he cannot be prosecuted while he remains in office. -
Re:too little too late
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 10 in 1787, fortelling Digg: "Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."